War on Sound
by Periphery
Summary: Collection of post-eps for season eleven. The end: dealing with Jo and a bit of the finale.
1. Unstable

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters... none of the episodes I'm playing off of... etc. If Dick Wolf or NBC owns it, I don't. Don't sue me please, as all I have is the fruits of a summer job at slightly over minimum wage._

_A/N: They're back!!!!! This is basically exactly the same idea as Feel the Silence, except the new season gets a new song. (By Moonbabies, incidentally, and found on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. I don't own those either.) To recap: these post-eps are not related to anything except the episode in question unless I specifically say otherwise. They especially are not related to each other. Also: as many of you know, I don't ship EO. I do, however, try my best to stay true to the show, which is delightfully ambiguous. If you choose to get something from any of these chapters that isn't exactly what I had in mind... well then I think I did something right._

_So enjoy!_

* * *

This time, when Elliot goes to break the news to Victor Tate, she goes with him. She comes up with a work-related stop they can make on the way back, as an excuse, and she thinks it even fools him. He's caught up in his mistakes.

Some may say this is a Catholic thing but she knows otherwise. It's a function of making mistakes big enough to wrap around yourself, round and round until you are mummified. Until you become someone entirely different.

She drives. This makes her feel strangely maternal, as though she has a sullen child in the passenger seat where really there is a grown-up, brooding man. _Run along now and apologize, honey._ She keeps this thought to herself because it doesn't help even in her head.

At some point Elliot tries half-heartedly to start a conversation, but she raises an eyebrow, _Really? Is this what you really want to do?_ and he goes back to staring out the window.

_Good boy,_ she thinks, and almost laughs.

* * *

She follows him inside, past security and through the maze of bars, but hangs back out of earshot of the conversation. She can catch yelling, no words, but that's all right. After all, she didn't tag along to babysit.

Cragen trusts her to keep her partner in line, but she doesn't think he realizes that half the job is knowing when no-one has to do it.

The yelling is all in unfamiliar tones. Tate. While she knows what it is to be innocent in prison, she cannot conceive of a life sentence. She imagines Elliot, helpless, with nothing to say except _I'm sorry._

Privately, she thinks ADA Paxton isn't trying hard enough, but no way in hell will she confide this opinion to Elliot. She'll have a chat with Sonya later. Woman to woman. Try to be welcoming. She isn't sure but she doesn't think she's entirely on Paxton's bad side yet so that's a step up from Elliot at least. She has to give it a shot. If Victor Tate has no-one to speak up for him besides her and her partner – well, in any case he'll have both of them.

It is an utterly defeated Elliot who finally appears and drags his feet toward her. He won't meet her eyes so she just watches him all the way, matches his slow pace. "Hey."

He grunts in response and she waits until they're back in the car to try again.

"El, you can't change – "

"I know."

So she does what they do best: change the subject. "I have a bone to pick with you," she announces, and when she gets no response she just continues, "Why the hell did you tell me to get back?"

"What?" he says blankly.

"With Foster." She starts the ignition, for all the world as though this is just any conversation. Maybe it is. Maybe they've been over this sort of thing so many times that it's as natural as an interrogation routine, a dance to which they've both learned the steps long ago. He does something and she gets offended and he tries feebly to defend himself and eventually he forgets the whole thing and she pretends to. She's not even sure that she's offended anymore, but she always remembers.

"Oh," Elliot says, then sits for a moment in thought, watching the fence of the prison pass by. "How about this," he says slowly.

She almost forgets to watch the road; she only meant to distract him. Certainly she wasn't expecting an actual answer.

"I beat you to it. How's that?"

"Wow," she says, meaning it. "That's actually pretty good."

He doesn't quite crack a smile. "I am good for something, you know."

"El."

"Let's not."

After all, this is how they tend to operate together, and they've been doing it so well lately that she lets it be.

_Don't worry,_ she says silently. _You're not the only one trying to figure this out._

* * *

Not sure I'm really back in my groove...

Pleeeeease R&R! Comments are greatly appreciated.

* * *

* * *


	2. Sugar

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_I don't know about all of you, but I liked this episode... "Girls, girls, you're both pretty" made me laugh._

* * *

It's always worse when it happens in the precinct.

Fin hands Olivia a pair of handcuffs and she snaps them onto the unresisting Chantel, reciting mechanically, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say – " It occurs to her to leave and she jerks the girl away from the newly created crime scene. Only later will they realize that they are restraining the daughter with the same cuffs her father willingly took on for her. There is something vaguely, indefinably wrong about that.

* * *

It's not like shit doesn't go down in or near their squad room on a semi-regular basis. People try to assault each other all the time. There are shootings and detectives are thrown into windows and bombs explode in pizza boxes. By all rights they should not expect this place to be safe.

But they do.

Logic, after all, dances in and out of their world so often that they take her complete absence as a matter of course.

After spending so much time on the streets, never the same place twice, running all over the metro area to conduct interviews, without even a schedule to ground them, they come to see this room as a sanctuary. It's a constant, sometimes the only constant in their lives. The same desk, the same familiar faces, the same bad coffee.

They go to hell and back every time they process a scene. Hell is obvious, and back, well, back is here. Back is home. Against all logic they are used to feeling safe here.

* * *

What is possibly the worst part is that, although she feels like she'll never look at a pair of scissors the same way again, she knows she will. Time will pass and the memory will fade and she will forget that the squad room is not necessarily safe until more shit happens in it.

* * *

"Teenage hormones aside," Olivia says, "I highly doubt Lizzie is planning on stabbing you anytime soon."

Elliot glances across the car at her. "Well. Now that that's settled."

"Yes. I'm glad we had this talk."

He cracks first and then they're both laughing from the sheer stress of it all, harder than they've laughed in weeks. When he recovers he's somewhat embarrassed because really it's a very unfunny situation so he starts the car while she's still laughing and begins to navigate out of the parking garage even though he's forgotten where they're going. It's the first they've been in their car since their squad room became a murder scene and there is a comfort just to driving it.

"Liv," he says when he reaches the street.

"Left," she replies, calmer now. "The scene's not far."

It figures that they can't even digest one tragedy without being called to another. He turns left as directed. "How about you? You okay?"

"What, are we done with the three daughters already?"

It's true, of course, that he doesn't want the topic on himself. Would he take the rap for his child? The first instinct is to say yes, in a heartbeat – and the second is to remember that loving is letting go. What Vance Shephard did was noble, to be sure, but getting away with murder isn't really what was best for Chantel and so Elliot thinks he can handle the distinction between himself and Vance.

It took him a long time to learn this lesson, but ever since the day he cut up Kathleen's driver's license he's been doing his damnedest not to forget it.

* * *

He doesn't ask her again so she lets it be. It's better that way, because if he heard her whole "fathers" conversation then her issue is identifying with Chantel and his is identifying with her father, and their relationship just got a hell of a lot weirder.

Not that her father ever made her any promises in the first place.

Serena Benson, however, was the queen of broken promises. Somewhere around high school Olivia took on an optimistic view of the whole thing. Even good parents, she concluded, break promises; and she left it at that long ago.

Honestly, she has a lot of trouble sympathizing with Chantel. So your dad didn't do what he said we would. He's a parent and a man. Double whammy. Suck it up.

So much for optimism.

* * *

_TBC...sort of..._

_Please review!_


	3. Solitary

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_So much to say... so little time..._

* * *

Some people come up here to think, but he's reached the point where he's just trying his hardest not to. At first he got up to the open air and breathed it in, relishing the pure expansion of space, and said to himself: _okay, now it's time to think about something else._

But then his mind wandered to that silly hospital gurney, voices floating over him and Olivia's hands clenched possessively on the railing. At the time he wondered, childishly, if she was mad at him; her voice had that edge to it. He still wonders that. He thinks maybe she's half-avoiding him.

It's not a pleasant train of thought so he just sits with the wall at his back and doesn't think about anything at all.

* * *

People look at her oddly when she suddenly gets up, gives no explanation, and leaves the bullpen. She doesn't care; she has a feeling.

She's right, of course.

"I knew I'd find you here," she says as she steps out onto the roof.

Elliot tips his head back and squints at her. "You have a tendency to know these things."

"Yes."

"I'm glad you didn't sic Paxton on me this time."

"I'll keep that in mind." Olivia slides down the wall to sit beside him, crossing her arms against the brisk fall air. "You two didn't bond over beers?"

He snorts. "Yeah, right."

"Right." She puffs experimentally to check if she can see her breath yet. She can't.

It should be ironic that she's the one trying to avoid rooftops while he, apparently, is seeking them out. But somehow it makes perfect sense.

"You mad at me?" he asks suddenly. She can tell he's trying to sound casual.

"Of course not."

"You're not hovering."

"What is this, then?"

"You haven't _been_ hovering," he amends.

"Well." She considers. "You really need to stop this, you know."

"Stop what?"

She ignores him. "You know what's going to happen, don't you? You'll keep nearly getting yourself killed but I'm the one who's going to die prematurely of a heart attack."

"So what I need to do is… stop you from eating red meat?"

She's in a good position to elbow him in the gut, and she takes advantage of this. "For your information. Most of the precinct thinks you're insane."

"Of course," he says with some difficulty, readjusting himself so that one arm lies between her and his vital organs.

"They want to know why you did it."

"And you don't?"

She knows exactly why he went into solitary: it's the guilt. He's still up at night trying to figure out a solution for Victor Tate; no way was he going to remain willfully blind to the mindset of Callum Donovan.

Maybe she should enlighten him about this because she doesn't think he actually knows.

"It was terrible," he says without further prompting. "Inside."

It's not the words so much as the sudden distance in his eyes that gets her. She recognizes that distance.

"Would you like me to start hovering?" she offers. He'll know that she's only half-joking. If she tries she can pull off the silent not-too-close kind of hovering that would have helped her after _she_ got out of prison.

Elliot laughs a little and stretches his legs out in front of him instead of answering. She lets this go. They sit there silently for a few minutes, watching sunlight play on the surrounding buildings.

By way of a change of subject he finally says, "You've never talked about Sealview like that before."

"Your point?"

She can feel him turn to look at her, but she remains resolutely facing forward.

"So," he says. "You lied."

Of course she lied. It's not like she'd ever so much as mention the _real _worst part of being in prison in front of everyone.

"Well," she says, "I thought that was so obvious that it counted as the truth."

To his credit, Elliot acts as though this actually makes sense. "Second worst," he says.

He's right so she kicks his leg.

"Ouch," he says half-heartedly. "You really like abusing me today."

"Always," she corrects.

"True, but usually it's psychological torture." He pauses, realizing what he's just said.

"Elliot," she says bracingly. "You can't offend yourself."

He shifts, turning away from her. _Says who?_

"Well, I mean, you can, but don't bother being offended. There's no point."

"Personal experience?" he guesses.

"Maybe." A gust of wind makes them both shiver and she hugs her arms closer. "Let's make a deal, okay? Let's not die on the job."

"Sounds good."

"Or almost die."

"Deal."

"Good." She stands up and shakes out her legs. "C'mon."

"What?"

"Oh, I left out the part of the deal where you have to come inside now because it's cold and there's a pile of paperwork that I refuse to do all myself."

"You are a cruel, cruel woman," Elliot grumbles, but he takes the hand she offers and pulls himself up and follows her inside.

* * *

_TBC..._

_Pleasepleaseplease review!_


	4. Hammered

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_Last time I write this so late. Really. It would be better if I hadn't waited..._

* * *

His partner is turning into someone he does not recognize. He hates it hates it hates it but he doesn't know what to do about it so he just sits in the car and watches her at her mother's grave.

He tells himself he is being a model of patience but really he's using too much energy trying to figure it out to be impatient. Being here is enough to throw him off balance. He replays in his head the way she turned off their route back to the house, so casually that he remained absorbed in the file he was reading and didn't realize where they were until she pulled into the flower shop across from the cemetery.

Flowers? Olivia?

"What -- ?" he remembers starting.

"Don't," she said. "Be back in a few."

Twenty minutes later he is still stuck in the passenger seat and she is standing out amongst the headstones and he is so confused.

If it were just this, this sudden urge not only to pay her respects but to include him (sort of) in the process, he could handle it. He thinks. But that's a moot point anyway because it's so much more.

He has known her for twelve years and not once has she voluntarily mentioned her mother's rape or her drinking. Since the woman's death, in fact, Olivia has not mentioned her at all. Until now. All of a sudden she is dropping these things around as though she did it all her life – references to her childhood and alcoholism and even Sealview.

He considers getting out of the car and going to her but then he wouldn't recognize himself either. Better that one of them stays the same.

He used to press her about these things, sometimes. When he could see that a case was affecting her particularly he wouldn't drop it until she gave in. Even then one sentence was usually as much as he got. _I got used to it a long time ago._ Once or twice, when others were discussing her mother in low tones, she would chip in and silence them with guilt. She never brought up the subject herself that he can remember. These days she is. She handed Paxton ammunition, watched it blow up in her face, and did not retreat into herself as he expected her to do.

Part of him insists this is a good thing, but mostly he cannot stop wondering what happened to the Olivia who would hunch over her work and let Munch laugh at her before she would admit the truth.

Outside the trees sway in the wind and Olivia kneels. This leaves him at a whole new level of stupefied. Olivia Benson kneels to no-one.

When did it happen? Last month? Last year? Why didn't he notice? Was he not paying enough attention?

When she starts back toward the car he panics. The thoughts in his head are making him uneasy; he doesn't know what to say to her. He doesn't know how to keep her from finding out that he doesn't know what to say.

Fortunately, she doesn't give him a chance. "So," she says as she slides into the driver's seat, her voice determined and familiar, "sorry to see Paxton gone?"

They've talked about Paxton already, all of them, but he knows what she means. She means _really,_ she means _just between us._ He cannot remember the last time they did this but suddenly he does remember how much he's missed it.

"Crushed," he says as she starts the engine. "Can't you tell?"

"Yes, well, there's no-one to half-hit on you anymore."

"Oh, there's always someone to do that."

"But less creepily?"

"Exactly."

She smirks and turns left out of the cemetery. "Where were we actually headed?"

"Back," he says without further elaboration. "You okay?" The words slip out without his conscious participation. They're a lot easier to say than he thought they would be.

"Fine," she says, managing somehow to sound as though she is telling the truth. "You do what you gotta do."

"True," he says, but he stops there because he doesn't know what it is that he has to do next. Not with her. At least that hasn't changed.

* * *

_Pleasepleaseplease review!!_


	5. Hardwired

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_I did like this ep but was not very inspired...so short and (I hope) sweet. Also because I miss Munch. I remembered in time that he is not a member of Generation Y and therefore would probably not use the phrase "that's what she said." Anachronism averted. It was tempting though._

* * *

"Why is it always you and me left?" he asks late one night.

"Because our partners ditch us every other night?" Olivia suggests instantly.

John leans back in his chair. "I was really looking for a deeper why. You know. Philosophically."

Privately she thinks that Elliot and Fin more often have reasons to leave the squadroom. "What, don't you like me anymore?"

"That's assuming I liked you in the first place."

She sighs gustily. "Fine. You got me. The real reason is that my life is desolate without you but I never seem to see you during the day anymore, so I'm forced to keep working whenever you are in order to get my dose of John."

"It's okay," he says comfortingly. "You're not the first woman to have that problem."

"Or man."

"True."

Of course the real reason is that they are, John and Olivia, they're married to this job. They couldn't stay away if they tried – John did try after he left Baltimore and look how that turned out. And her – what's left for her at home except the absence of the life she hasn't led?

Neither of them mentions this. It's so easy, with John, to be a happier version of herself.

"How'd your case turn out?" he asks.

She looks at the stacks of folders scattered over her desk. "Which one?"

"The one with the _special_ love." He puts just the right cadence on the word "special" and she has to smile.

"Good, actually."

"Good meaning?"

"Well, we put quite a lot of people away and mother and son are going to Florida to start over. With all of her soon-to-be-ex-husband's money."

John whistles. "That's about as good as they get."

She thinks about this, decides he's right. That's the most you can hope for, in the SVU, a conviction and a moving on.

"And how much did you have to do with the nice neat monetary solution?" he wants to know.

"Didn't you hear? I got a little gangster in me. According to Eva."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Oh, right, I forgot – you never get any so you wouldn't recognize one. Yes. It is a compliment."

John doesn't bother to look hurt. "In that case, I think you have a lot of gangster in you."

There is something slightly odd about this statement. After a moment she realizes: he almost sounds serious.

She looks at him and he immediately returns to his paperwork. "Thanks, Munch," she says slowly.

At that moment Derek, the fresh-faced young janitor who comes around this time of night, pokes his head in. "So do you two, like, live here?"

"Yes," John says even as Olivia says, "No."

"So, only on days ending in 'y,'" Derek concludes. "I'll come back to here and hopefully you'll be going home by the time I get back."

After he's gone John looks at her. "He's on to us."

"He's trying to mother us," she returns.

"Do we let him?"

"Tonight?" She considers the work before her and feels very tired. "Yes."

They run into Derek mopping by the elevators; he puts on a knowing smile and it looks so strange on his child's face that both detectives start to chuckle and it's good.

* * *

_Pleeeease review!_

_National Novel Writing Month approaches. Therefore if I start to miss episodes don't worry... I'm probably still alive... just off developing my trap-a-bunch-of-people-in-an-elevator idea. Although last year I managed to post-ep PTSD during NaNo so we'll see what happens._


	6. Spooked

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_So this is a during/post-ep because, obviously, there were multiple things to talk about._

* * *

He keeps touching her. Every once in a while he gets up, to get them more coffee or just to walk around in circles and think out loud; and every time his hand lands on her shoulder or her arm, briefly, except once he isn't looking and clips her ear, which hurts more than it probably should. While they're sitting there for hours, talking and writing, he's continually knocking into her hand, sometimes sending her handwriting askew.

She doesn't complain, though, because she knows the feeling. He's just checking to make sure she isn't a hologram, that she is living and breathing and solid across from him. She almost feels the need to check herself.

He never lets her get up to get the coffee, either. Normally she would get mad about this but this is not normal and she knows it's just for tonight. It's because her knees might give out if she tries to stand, now that she is completely safe and the adrenaline completely gone. People do little things like that for you when you come that close, even (she thinks affectionately) blockheads like Elliot.

* * *

He cannot remember being so afraid in his life.

No, that's a lie. He's been that afraid before; after all, he's got a lot of people to be afraid for. Finding Kathleen unconscious in some hellhole immediately comes to mind.

But. Nothing, nothing is quite like watching your partner go down.

There was insanity in what happened today, in the way their collective life flashed before his eyes even as he willed it to go away because he needed to _focus_, he needed to save her, and that's insanity too because usually she doesn't need saving. More often _she_ saves_ him._

He wonders what, if anything, flashed before her eyes.

When she fell his mind stopped working entirely. He can recall the fall in vivid detail, over and over, but the next thing he remembers is asphalt digging into his knees and her voice, trembling and reassuring all at once.

"Liv," he says at some point in the night, while she's chewing on a pen cap, staring at the paper in front of her. She senses the odd inflection in his voice, looks up already wearing her soft non-smile.

"I," he starts, inadequately.

"Yeah," she says, "I know."

* * *

On the day they have to let Dean Porter go, she goes home like she always does. She manages the multiple locks on her front door, chains it from the inside, tosses her keys on the counter where they belong. She closes all the blinds. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had a dog.

Then she sits down on the couch, right where_ he_ was, and bursts into tears. This seems strange to her even while it's happening, because she never cries and she doesn't know what she's crying for. But somehow she can't stop.

It doesn't _matter_ anyway.

Eventually she cries herself to sleep right there, realizing it only when she wakes up disoriented in the pitch black with a terrible crick in her neck. She collects herself and becomes aware that it's only eleven and that her phone is ringing.

"Benson," she says groggily.

"Liv," her partner says.

"No," she groans; she's exhausted. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm just calling to see if you're okay."

And then she remembers.

"Liv?" Elliot says after a moment.

He doesn't get to do this. He picked on Dean all along; he doesn't get to pretend to be sympathetic now that Dean's no longer running in whatever petty little competition he imagines could possibly exist between them.

"Look," he says, "I'm sorry about Porter. I didn't think – "

She doesn't give a flying fuck what he thinks. "Elliot," she interrupts, "go bother your wife and leave me the hell alone."

And then she hangs up.

And then, without bothering to move off the couch, she goes back to sleep in an apartment that is achingly empty.

* * *

_TBC…_

_Please review. Please. I'm begging here._

* * *


	7. Turmoil

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_I'm back! I survived NaNoWriMo. Now to see if I survive finals… In any case I am playing catch-up. _

* * *

When they were little she used to burst into his room all the time. It smelled funny but she was so jealous of his room to himself that she didn't care, and besides her brother was pretty much a captive audience for whatever she was spouting off about. She told funny stories about her math teacher or asked random questions ("D'you think squirrels make good pets?") and on one memorable occasion singsonged, "Diiickie! Julie liiiikes you!" Whatever the reason she never bothered to knock, which sometimes had awkward consequences but really, they'd shared a bathtub as toddlers so who cared?

As they got older, though, he started to care. He's gotten wise and started locking his door, leaving Lizzie to rattle the knob until he opens it or, more often, to lean against the door and shout her message through the wood. She doesn't like this as it isn't very private and she's forgotten all of the secret language their mother says they used to have, so she can't even use that to code what she's saying. Dickie is not sympathetic in the least.

But today is different. He's too distracted to lock himself in, today, and so Lizzie walks right into his room and is assaulted by memory. It smells just like it always used to, like dirty laundry and stolen food and boy.

Her brother is standing in one of the few clear spots on his floor. When he sees her he kicks a pile of papers at her and she flinches but takes another step forward. "Dickie," she says.

"Didn't you hear?" he snaps. "It's Richard."

"Give me a break," she shoots back. If he wants to play rough, well, she's a Stabler too. "I've known you your whole life and you'll always be Dickie to me. Except for when you're just a dick."

Since she is in fact eleven minutes older he can't argue much and instead kicks another pile of papers, this time in the general direction of his neglected desk. She marches the room and establishes herself on his bed.

"Are you okay?" she asks, and then she watches as he stomps around the room and kicks a few more things and hops around holding his toes and swearing under his breath. She uses all the same words herself, but somehow they sound worse coming from his mouth.

"You're right," she says. "It was a stupid question. Shane's your best friend." And friends are everything.

_Go get your own friends, _Dickie yelled at her once when she was trying to get through his door. _I have my own friends,_ she yelled back. _I'm looking for my brother._

Now he looks at her for a long moment. He's wondering why she didn't say "was," and she lifts her chin in response. Her friend Michelle taught her never to say "was" in these situations. _Not if you believe in heaven_, she's fond of saying.

He can't lash out at her like he can at their parents. It's a peculiarity of siblinghood: siblings understand in ways that no-one else does. So instead he sits down next to her and she puts an arm around him and they sit like that for a moment.

"How come you can change your name but I can't?" he asks, finally.

"Lizzie's _easier, _that's why. Besides, it still hasn't caught on. Dad still calls me Elizabeth."

"So many syllables."

"Exactly. Did you really beat up some guy with a stick?"

His shoulders shift oddly. "Don't you have any sense of privacy?"

"Nope." A horrible thought strikes her. "It wasn't just some guy, was it?"

"No," he says, angry, but she knows he's just doing that to keep from falling apart.

"Dickie," she breathes, irrational fear seizing her. "Are you nuts? You could have been _killed._"

"So?" he says. "I wasn't.

_Shane was._

She doesn't know whether to hit him or hug him so she compromises by squeezing his shoulders and saying forcefully, "You're an idiot. Don't join the army."

He jerks out of her hold. "How did you know about that?"

"For Christ's sake, Dickie, I'm not Mom and Dad. I know things. Besides, you _told_ me ages ago."

"It doesn't have anything to do with you," he says.

"How can you say that?" she demands. "I'm your sister. If you go get yourself killed I won't have anyone to be on my side."

They do have to defend each other a lot, to their parents and their older sisters, and she thinks this must be why he actually considers this. "Get out," he says when he's done.

"No," she says.

He scoot farther away from her on the bed, putting his back against the headboard. "I'm not sorry. For hitting him."

Lizzie nods; she understands the instinct and besides, they can talk more about that later. They _have_ a later. "But you are sorry about something else?" she guesses.

"Well. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a jerk."

"To Dad?"

"I don't mind being a jerk to _him._ But the other cops… Olivia probably was just trying to help."

"So was Dad," Lizzie says, and as his face sets she goes on, "He's our dad. It's his job to worry about us first and everyone else second."

"You sound like him," Dickie says, without accepting what she's said.

She shrugs, not sure how to take this, and changes the subject. "Do me a favor?"

He must think she's crazy – why should _she _be asking anything of _him_, right now? – but he's her brother under all the grief and bravado so he just says, "Yeah?"

"Don't do that thing where you stay out all night doing nothing. Mom and Dad aren't the only ones who worry, you know."

He looks steadily at the far wall behind her, the one with a calendar still turned to June of last year; and his gaze is cold except for when it flicks to her. "Fine," he says. "I'll lock myself in here every night."

"Fine."

"Fine. Now will you get out?"

And so she does.

* * *

_To be brutally honest: I was surprised that people were so upset with Dickie. Maybe it's because I'm still a teenager myself, but I saw some of myself in him and a lot of my brother (who is the exact same age and doing just fine). Dickie in this ep: what you get when you put the Stabler temper in a scared kid who feels like he has nowhere to turn. Anger management, needed, but that will come._

_That said… please review!_


	8. Perverted

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_I began mid-ep again... directly after Olivia gets bailed out. The last scene is a true postep. Enjoy!_

* * *

She wonders if this is how it feels to be a damsel in distress. Probably. Probably those old princesses felt all shivery inside when they were rescued, only they hid it by being beautiful and charming whereas all she's got is the flu and some well-worn deflection techniques. Oh well – it's working all right.

She always thought she'd mind more, having to be rescued. Especially after Gitano. No matter how many times she did the saving, she never quite thought it was okay to be saved.

From the driver's seat Elliot shoots her a half-smile, reassuring even though she's not sure what he's thinking. She looks away before an answering smile spreads over her own face.

God knows she minded being rescued before, but this time she's too damn happy that she's not in prison to care. While she was in there she paced when she could and when they cuffed her to the bars she stared at the floor and recited anything she could think of to keep calm. She sang whole songs in her head and realized that somehow she still remembers all the words to "O Captain, My Captain" from high school. If she was going to stay, she thought, she'd need a lot more.

But she doesn't have to stay, because he _remembered._ It's incredible.

"You are _going _to tell Kathy, right?" she says as the thought occurs to her.

"Of course."

Olivia believes him. Somewhere along the line he decided to act first and ask permission later, and she has to be grateful for that.

"Good," she says. "And if she says something along the lines of _Men are so thoughtless,_ you just tell her that I agree."

"Okay," he snorts, when what he means is _You're a bad liar._

In fact she is a very accomplished liar but this has never seemed to affect him in the least. And she doesn't care, either.

* * *

He's hidden things and he's missed things and he's let people down, but he does not lie to his partner, ever. So the first thing he does when he gets home is sit Kathy down at the kitchen table.

The second thing he does is notice that said kitchen table is completely covered in two heavy blankets. "What the – "

Kathy holds a finger to her lips, grinning. "It's a fort," she whispers.

"Of course," he says, and takes a quick peek underneath to satisfy himself that Eli is fast asleep amid a pile of alphabet blocks. And then he decides there's no point in beating around the bush so he just tells her.

She sits very still, when he's done, chewing on her lower lip. "You need to explain to me how this works," she says, in the careful tone that means she hasn't decided yet whether or not to be angry.

"Yes," he says hopefully. "I mean, of course."

"Olivia's innocent," she says, assuredly, and as an afterthought adds, "and court-order-abiding."

It occurs to him that his wife probably trusts Olivia more than she trusts him. He can't blame her.

"Yes," he says.

"So our money is… safe."

"Absolutely."

"That's the important thing, I guess." She doesn't sound like she believes herself. "Why did you have to do this?"

"Because," he says, "there's no-one else to do it. Kath." He hesitates for a moment, wondering what Olivia might do to him if she knew what he's about to say, then decides to worry about that later. He plunges ahead recklessly, "Liv was in prison once before, you know, undercover, and… she got hurt real bad in there, and… this time I could have her back like I'm supposed to, see?"

Kathy nods shortly, thoughtfully. He can't believe she's actually listening. He can't believe that after twenty-five years they can still surprise each other.

"I knew I should have asked you first," he says. "I mean, I would've, but there wasn't time. I'm sorry about that."

She smiles. "Wow. You _do _know how to apologize."

"It's among my many talents."

"We need to make big decisions together."

"I know."

Kathy chews her lip some more. "Olivia really needed this, huh?"

He nods fervently, suddenly unable to form words. He's not used to Olivia's needing anything.

"Well, after all she's done for this family I can't really complain, can I?" But she looks a little uncomfortable all the same as she stands and moves absently in the direction of the stove.

* * *

"You know," he says, when the hubbub has died down, "after someone tries to kill you, you don't mention getting over your cold."

Olivia snorts. "Maybe _you _don't."

They don't know it, of course, but they're both thinking the same thing. They feel like they've passed some sort of test, something devised to try not him or her but the incalculable that is them. He did right by her every step of the way, for once; and what's more, she let him.

"I think it's really going away," she says. "Highlight of the week, easy."

"Unless you just passed it on to Munch."

"Ah, he'll forgive me."

"He'll make the rest of us miserable first."

"You'll survive," she says.

At this point, they really think they might.

* * *

_TBC..._

_Pleasepleaseplease review!_


	9. Shadow

_Disclaimer: See previous._

_Possibly one of the shortest things I have ever written. In my defense, I have something else in the works at the moment... also I, like others, was confused about who knew what when towards the end of the ep, so I have been accordingly vague._

* * *

They put off the paperwork for a while to celebrate what Ash describes as "a kick-ass end to a case that wasn't supposed to be yours to begin with."

"Yeah," Fin says, "I missed the beginning. How _did _we end up with this one?"

"I don't even remember," Elliot groans.

"First thought it was DV," Olivia says. "And then the chief wouldn't let us kick it over to Homicide…"

"Because he's smart," Ash says. "He knew you're the only unit in Manhattan reckless enough to solve it no matter how many times you were told to stand down."

Olivia, Fin, and Elliot look at each other. Silently they agree: the man is extremely confused.

"You've got it backwards," Olivia says. "The chief hates us. He's like to scrap the whole unit and replace us with people who'd listen to him."

"I think he'd settle for scrapping you two," Fin says.

"Ledger."

"Fine…"

"If he really wanted to fire you, I'm sure he'd have found an excuse," Ash says, attempting to be reasonable.

"It's hard to fire us for shit that works," Elliot says.

At this point Munch walks in and wants to know if he's being replaced again, and Ash laughs and takes the opportunity to excuse himself. Olivia watches him go. Part of her, the teenage part, hopes he'll call her.

Well, why not? She hasn't so much as looked twice at a man since the debacle that was Dean Porter's latest appearance in her life. It's nice.

Elliot rolls his eyes at her and she kicks him. That's nice, too.

* * *

She has handled Elliot for many years and every once in a while he has an overprotective moment or two. It's not a surprise anymore, just another time she has to remind him that it works both ways. Sometimes she gets to do the protecting.

They're not supposed to measure or tally it – it'll come out all wrong if they do. They just pick, every time it's needed, who will protect or whether they'll just defend each other – they're both so strong-willed that this is usually what happens.

But she reserves the right to pick, and this time she picked herself, and he'll just have to deal with that.

In the early years of their partnership she got mad and told him off for not trusting her, because she needs his trust like she needs her gun. But they've had that argument so painfully and so many times that she's finally caved. He doesn't just trust her, he also gives a shit whether she lives or dies. At this point she needs that too.

* * *

_TBC... _

_Please review!_


	10. Savior

_A/N: My most sincere apologies for disappearing without notice. Truthfully... over the hiatus I lost inspiration - that is, I didn't want to deal with the deteriorating quality and continuity of new eps. Organic chemistry might also have had something to do with it... in any case I felt that this episode, at least, really deserved a postep. _

* * *

She calls Cragen early in the morning, because she's still awake and he's always been a morning person. He doesn't seem surprised. She wishes he would have the grace to pretend.

With her day off she hits the gym, trying to make herself tired enough to sleep. It doesn't work; her brain won't shut up. She ends up collapsed on her couch, exhausted and wide awake, which is probably worse off than she was to start with.

Lovely.

When her phone rings it's just out of reach, which is somehow worse than if it were across the room; and so she lets it go for a while before summoning the will to lunge for it.

* * *

"Did you hear that Gladys took off?"

Elliot frowns. "No. When?"

"Last night," Munch says.

"Last night… I was not on duty and did not hear. What about the baby?"

"No idea. Do you remember the good old days when we all used to talk to each other?"

"Yeah, only we called them 'oh crap, Munch is running his mouth off again.'"

"I was giving you useful information," Munch says, sliding into the driver's seat of the sedan with great dignity.

"I still have the keys," Elliot points out, but Munch gives him such an uncharacteristic wide grin that he hands the keys over just to make it stop and goes around to the passenger side.

"Deep, deep down," Munch says, "you know you love me."

"Deep, deep down, you know you're a crazy old man."

"Well, you'll be rid of me soon enough." He doesn't bother to act hurt. "Liv'll be in by the time we get back."

But she isn't, and what's more her desk shows no sign of her having been near it today, and now he's starting to worry so he sticks his head into Cragen's office. "Cap, you heard from Liv?"

The captain looks up and eyes him in exasperation; Elliot is reminded irresistibly of his mother. "Don't you two ever talk to each other?"

"Well, clearly you and Munch do," Elliot mutters.

"She'll be in tomorrow. Get out of my office."

Fin glances up as he stalks away, then returns to his work. Feeling paranoid, Elliot veers off to the hallway where there are fewer pairs of eyes to watch him. He agonizes. He calls.

By the time she picks up he's stopped expecting her and is caught off guard. "Elliot?" she says, irritable. He clears his throat.

"Cragen thinks we never talk to each other," he says.

"We don't."

"Really?"

"Really."

"What is this, then?"

"An anomaly."

"You all right?"

"Fine," she sighs, annoyed. "I just had some errands to run."

Errands. He casts around for something relevant to say, something that isn't a query about how long it's been since either of them really was "fine." "You heard about Gladys?"

She sucks in a breath and he frowns. That wasn't supposed to elicit an actual reaction. That was just supposed to be making conversation.

"I heard," she says flatly. "Anything else to tell me?"

"Uh," he says.

"Thought not. Are you okay? You're acting strange."

He's had a lot of weird conversations, but this is starting to run for weirdest ever. "I'm fine."

"Okay then."

For a beat they both hesitate, but then she hangs up.

* * *

His house is full of female voices, full in a way he doesn't remember it being in years. Elliot wanders toward the living room and pauses quietly at the door. A gaggle of girls, Lizzie among them, is clustered around Eli on the floor. His daughter, possessed of an almost unnatural awareness that he likes to think she got from him, glances up and smiles at him while her friends coo over Eli.

"Is it weird that I want one?" one of the girls sighs.

"Yes," another deadpans even as she attempts to lure Eli into her lap.

"I think you might want to wait a while to have one," says a third, absently restacking a pile of blocks.

"You're so lucky, Liz," says the first.

Lizzie laughs. "You wouldn't think so if he was crying all night the night before _your_ tests." She pokes Eli gently, so that he looks up, spots Elliot, and clambers to his feet, crowing, "Da'ee!"

Lizzie's friends make disappointed noises as Elliot scoops up his son. "Are you having fun?" he asks. "Or do you need rescuing from the scary pack of women?"

"We're playing nice, Mr. Stabler, honest," says the girl with the blocks, shaking back a mane of wavy hair. He tries to remember her name. Gretchen? Gloria? No – it's Caitlin, he wasn't even close. Not Gladys – funny, he hasn't so much as thought of her since Olivia hung up on him this morning.

Eli tugs on his ear and Elliot returns his attention to the living room. "Well," he says, addressing Lizzie, "I bet Mom's glad to have him in here with you."

"She said if we keep an eye on this little boy, she can deal with her other little boy," Lizzie says. "Only she sounded more angry about it."

He's not sure he wants to know what Dick has done now. Elliot shares an exasperated look with his daughter and surrenders Eli to one of her eager friends. "As long as you're all having fun."

"Oh, he's precious," says the girl holding Eli – Hillary, maybe – bouncing him awkwardly.

"All right." Elliot supposes he should go back Kathy up now – he can just make out raised voices from above – but his phone rings just as he reaches the foot of the stairs.

"Liv," he says, bemused. If she's not working, why would she be calling him?

"Hi," she says, as though this means something.

"Hi?"

"Listen," she says, "I know more about Gladys and the baby than you do. If you're still wondering."

In truth, work on another case has driven them both from his mind. He sits down anyway, on the steps; the situation seems to call for it. "Go."

Olivia sighs, slowly, clears her throat. "The baby's dead, El."

"Oh," he says stupidly. Is that why Gladys ran away?

She hurries on, "When Gladys left, she – she left a note – she left me power of attorney for the baby. Cragen came to tell me. And… and the next thing I know I'm at the hospital and they're telling me she needs surgery and I have to make a decision _now_…"

"Oh," he says, again, as the reason for her call – and her mysterious errands – comes clear. "You told them not to do it." She must be afraid he'll judge her, for that. A bead of panic rises in his chest. What does he say to her?

But her next words come as a surprise.

"No," she says, "no, I didn't, I – I didn't know what to say. I just – stood there like an idiot."

Upstairs a door slams and his wife's voice increases in volume. Elliot feels distinctly trapped. "Liv," he says.

"Well," she says. "They were serious when they said there wasn't much time."

"The surgery probably would have killed her," he says, grasping at straws.

"Probably," Olivia agrees, and blows out a breath in frustration. "I froze."

"It happens."

"Not to me."

"Yeah, but this was different."

"You think?"

Dick's shouting back at his mother now. Elliot drops his head into one hand, touched at how she values his opinion even as he wishes, irritated, that she would get over this already, this constant devaluing of herself. He fights for logic, for evidence. "Liv. That's the kind of decision that's just not supposed to be made quickly. It was an impossible situation."

They're both quiet, for a moment. He can hear her breathing.

"Do you think she's better off?" he asks.

After a pause she admits, "I don't know anymore. Must be nice to have all the answers."

He laughs. "It's nice to pretend to have all the answers. I'm not even sure there are any."

Probably she is pondering too, now, how easy it is to take sides, to forget how alike they really are.

"Well, it's over now," she says, even though it sort of isn't. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Good. I don't like being loaned out to the others."

He thinks he hears her giggle. "G'night, El."

"Night," he says, and he holds the phone for a minute before heading upstairs to another unsolvable case.

* * *

_Please review! I haven't decided yet whether to do one final chapter for the season. Will this be back for season twelve? I haven't decided that yet either. There are a lot of factors, not least of which is the episodes themselves. Somehow, though, I will be back!_


	11. Jo

_Disclaimer: See previous._

* * *

Initially she laughs it off. She's gotten better at that, lately; sometimes the fake attitude even becomes her real one. She's realized that it's far too easy to find everything stupid or depressing. But she just smiles instead and later it doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

Not so this time. For years she has pictured Marlowe as a burly man, reckless, maybe a redhead. That's when she thought about Elliot's ex-partners at all. Now she's left to wonder how he can go for so long without using any personal pronouns.

Really, is it so much to ask for him to drop a "she" here or there? Does he talk about her the same way? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

It's like meeting his mother all over again. At least that time she got to help rescue Kathleen in the bargain.

* * *

Every time Jo walks into a room, Olivia feels sick. Luckily she's excellent at hiding this. It helps to know that Fin and Munch don't care much for their new ADA either. They can't put a reason to it, though, beyond John's eloquent "She – just – _bugs _me."

Olivia knows. She can't stand watching Elliot and Jo interact – it's like looking at a caricature of her own partnership.

She hopes it's a caricature.

Of course she has a few ex-partners, and of course Elliot, technically her senior, has some too. She _knows_ that. But.

Never before has she felt like the replacement. That was Dani's job. She's spent nearly four years not thinking about that.

* * *

After a while, inevitably, Elliot notices how she feels about Marlowe. "You know," he says, one day at lunch, "I'd like to have Alex back too. But Jo's not that bad. Give her a chance."

Olivia just looks at him. Of course she wants Alex back; they all do, even Cragen has let it show. Casey was excellent but since she left they've been stuck with a succession of outsiders. Except for Alex.

But she's not kidding herself about this one. It's Jo Marlowe in particular that she really wants gone. She can't say that. Elliot loves having her around.

"Jo's fine," she says, stabbing at a piece of lettuce. "I think Munch has had it up to here with the new CSU guy though – did you hear him?"

"Yeah, but I didn't pay attention so he could have been going on about something else."

It's far too easy to distract him.

How come, whenever someone from _her_ past turns up, there's always disaster involved?

* * *

He's saved Jo and she's saved Melinda, but neither of them could save Nicholas and there's only so much madness that can be taken in at once so they just stand there staring. Elliot thinks it's taking him longer to process things, these days; he hates that.

"She's nuts," he says finally, as though it is a new thought.

Olivia mutters, "Which one?"

He looks back at her but she only glances at him. "That's not funny," he says.

She might be rolling her eyes. He can almost hear her: _Nothing's funny, genius._

"I'm serious," he says. "Jo's had her problems too, you know, and you – " He stops, breathes, and just tells her.

He's not sure she's listening.

When he finishes she finally holds his gaze. "That's terrible," she says frankly, and then, "I'm going to go to the hospital and check on Melinda."

"Oh," he says, because he can't exactly argue with that. "How was she?"

Olivia shrugs. "She'll probably tell me she doesn't need to be checked up on, but I don't know. You okay here?"

"Yeah." Why wouldn't he be?

"Okay," she says quietly, and she tilts her head and looks at him searchingly, so that he can't tell if the look in her eyes is merely an appropriate show of sadness or something more. "Okay," she says again.

When she's gone he feels vaguely unsettled.

He looks back at Jo.

* * *

_finis_

* * *

...And that's it for season eleven. I couldn't handle rewatching some of those eps, but I thought Jo was important (good, not so much).

Will I be back for season twelve? I'm striking a deal with myself: if I finish an episode and am not embarrassed to have just watched it, I will postep. I have a rather high embarrassment threshold (particularly since my friends made me watch an episode of Angel featuring demon puppets), so stay tuned! I'm beginning my English-major courses and have been an inadequate writer lately, so I'll do my best to fix that.

Please review! Thanks for reading!


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